walks on the heach, receives visitors (in the late after- noons), and writes a lot (in the mornings) , Including po- lemics against his successors. He is a slight, brown-eyed, graYIng man, approaching sixty, of obviously concen- trated intelligence and strong temperament. He is receptive to North American visitors professing a real interest in Bolivia, though his English gives him trouble; he was Bolivian Ambassador to Lon- don from 1957 to 1959, and Inust have spoken it fluently then, hut now it is failing him somewhat, and he gropes for words or shifts into Spanish. His villa is watched by a few Peruvian police, which means that his visitors are also watched, but the police guard (which follows him when he lea yes home) is probably need- ed for hIs safety. Late last year, a young man, presum- ably a Bolivian, attacked him in the Lima airport with kicks, a popular Bolivian mode of ag- gression Paz has many Bolivian en- emies, most of them deriving from the privileged classes that were dispossessed i:1 1952 but some from disgruntled ele- ments of the M.N.R., which hecame badly fragmented toward the end of its sway. The enemies are to be found both in BolivIa and in exile, and no one can tell how far, in the fervor of Bolivian politics, some of these enemies might go. In Lima, Paz reputedly spends much time on Party affairs, corresponding with exiles in other countries and, cov- ertlv, with associates in Bolivia. Almost certainly, the latter effort is helped by the sievelike nature of Bolivia's security arrangemen ts ; Bolivia being a huge, wild, underpopulated country with inadequate numbers of police, it is a smugglers' paradise, among other things, and one gathers that people and documents flow into it easily without official knowledge. Paz and his associ- ates have eXploited this situation in the past, and one can be sure that they are doing it again. The M.K.R.'s fragmentation was one of the main reasons for its fall and is a great source of weakness in it now. When the M.N.R was in power Paz blamed thIs fragmentation on the lack of a strong opposition and on the fact that he and the rest of the leader- ship concentrated on Bolivia's economic developmen t to the detriment of party affairs. He might have added that in . "" t.J I '" } ,-. \ /ø, ',' :- 'Y':": ": "'''''. . W' .....::. JSN "*"-. S""::;") y ..- 39 I \ :: y.:- t " _ i I 1 f f , M , - ' , " ::: \- . ",. ': "- J ). ... '<- . '?. . .:.. ': :":,,,;: ': ", f } :.}..::," >6.... "'" ((Believe me, it's no bed of roses knowing that nearly every nincompoop in this damn place is afraid of you." . Bolivia, a poor country, politicians on the winning side demand a share of the spoils, and toward the end of his rule there were no longer spoils enough to go around. The M.N.R. was an es- sentially loose assemblage of right, cen- ter, and left, and at the end hoth right and left turned against Paz; it was they who overthrew him, in co- operation with the Army and wIth counter-revolutionary forces, whIch had been biding their time since 1952. To- day, some parts of the old M. .R. right are with Barrientos, and some ran in last July's election as a splinter group. As for the old M.N.R. left, most of it was led off in the early sixties by Juan Lechín to form a new party, the P.R.I.N. (Partido Revo- lucionario de Izquierda Nacionalista, or Revolutionary Party of the National Left), which boycotted the July elec- tions, on the ground that they were fraudulently conducted. The P.R.I.N. has recently got on more friendly terms with the M.N.R., partly as a result of a senes of talks between Paz and Lechln last spring in Lima. The P.R.I.N., the M.N.R., and other left and center groups (ex- cluding the Bolivian Communists, who are alsG badly fragmented) Inay soon be collaborating both overtly and cov- ertly, In a repetition of the tactics used in 195 2-except that the leader') are fifteen years older now and in those . fifteen years have done things to each other that cannot readily be forgotten. Last spring, Juan Lechín and Hernán Siles both came back to Bolivia from exile (in Paraguay and Uruguay, re- spectively) to prepare for the July elec- tions-which Siles and his group, like Lechln's, ultimately boycotted. Both took up sub-rosa political work, as they had done In 1952. At this writing, LechÍn is still in La Paz, more or less in hiding, and Siles is back in Uruguay. I have talked with them both-with SIles one morning at the suburban home where he was living, and with Lechín one evening dt the home of a friend. Both are stimulating talkers. Siles, who is slight and has a dark mustache, is 'ì cultivated professional man; as Presi- dent, he followed relatively conserva- tive policies, especially in finance, and firmly curbed a severe inflation. Lechín is more of a working-class type, and much more Marxist in what he says, but also charming, with a strong, ath- letic physique, flashing dark eyes, and gray hair brushed back in a pompadour. Both told me they were working, un- derground, to rally the miners and kin- dred elements, and both were undoubt- edly exerting influence, but both are well into their fifties now. Because of things that happened in 1964, Siles is not on speaking terms with Paz, though he coöperates with him politically. When one talks with Siles or Lechln, or wIth